Amateur homesteading


spontaneous said:



sac said:



spontaneous said:

We just don't have that kind of income and because of circumstances and the stupid way in which schools and municipalities are funded in this state (property taxes vs income taxes) blue collar families have a harder time making due in suburban areas. 

This is what makes me sad about our state!  Both for middle-income working folks and for senior citizens who just can't afford to come or to stay here.  We lost dear friends for the same reason a number of years ago.  (We didn't lose them as friends ... just as neighbors.)  And I hate seeing so many empty-nesters move away!

I would like for our diversity to include more age and income level and blue/white collar, etc. But it seems to be moving in the opposite direction than that.  LOL

Senior citizens below a certain income level can apply to have a portion of their property tax frozen. However, if you're under that age, then you don't get the same protections regardless of the income level.  It does suck




Oh, and Kingwood isn't perfect.  Leonard Lance the congressional representative.   zipper 

Lance is vulnerable ... I know many locals are working in the "flip the 7th" campaign.  (Fingers crossed!)


I just finished the “Searching The Search Room” event. It was really cool. I found some stuff, but considering the nature of older deeds it is difficult to determine when the home was built. Apparently back in the day the buildings were nothing, only the land was of any importance 


There was a mortgage in 1855, though it is very difficult to read, so I made a photocopy to take home and try to decipher later and see it if makes mention of the house, though from the tax maps and also from the pictures I have, they shared my confidence that the house was the dwelling shown on the 1851 map


On a side note, who the hell uses a sapling as a landmark when writing up a deed!?!


What is the "Searching the Search Room" event?


A lot of people search through public records.  Looking for easements, seeing who owned their property before they did, etc.  But though everything is there, it isn't easy if you don't know how their filing system works.  We were looking for a specific item in Newark once, and though the county clerks were very friendly and tried to be helpful, they weren't able to find anything and said it must not be on file.   However, one of the title searchers there helped us out and found the records in no time flat and showed us how to search if there was anything else we needed

Well, in Hunterdon County they apparently have an event on occasion (I think about once a year, but don't quote me on that) where they had a short class, which included a lot of materials, and even this really cool magnifying glass, so they could explain to people trying to do research in the records dept how to look things up.  After the instructional part everyone started looking for their stuff, and they had staff and title searchers there to assist people, since even with the instructional part it is still a little overwhelming when you look through these books if you don't have practice.  I can't speak for the other attendees, but personally I would have been lost if not for the people helping me out today AND the instructional part both put together.  I didn't get all the records that I wanted today, but I got an excellent start and now have a much better idea of how to proceed when I go back to search for more paperwork.  

I didn't understand what the magnifying glass was for at first, I thought it was just a ruler and didn't really look at it.  Well, some of the older deeds I have photocopies of have made the need for the magnifying glass apparent.  As an aside, photocopies are allowed, cell phone pictures are not, and only pencils are allowed in the records room, no pens.  I've never been, but I believe that there are similar rules for the state archives in Trenton.  There is a WEALTH of information available there, but you aren't even allowed to bring in purses.  They have lockers for you to store your bags, pens, etc, in.

And even for someone not looking in Hunterdon County per se, this would still be helpful as many of the instructions and explanations on how to look up records would be useful in other counties, not just in Hunterdon



This thing makes reading old handwritten deeds much easier


Hope all goes well for you! When you're settled, take a walking tour of Frenchtown (they leave from the downtown book store) with a wonderful amateur historian named Rick Epstein. A local for many decades and a former Hunterdon County Democrat (the local paper) editor, you will find him a wonderful source. And he's a terrific person, too. 


Some of the handouts


The instructions, the materials, and the assistance in searching are all a great help individuallly. But put all three together and I feel a lot more confident for the next time I go searching for information 


Fooling around on the web and I found an older listing from a few years back.  I'm going to break your heart with these pictures.  However, it is damage and neglect like this that is part of why we are getting this house for the price we bid.  It will take some repairing, and it won't be cheap, and it might never look like "new" again.  But it is what it is.  And as an aside, having been a landlord once, I can say that crap like this is why I never want to rent out a home again, ever.  My husband briefly toyed with the idea of holding onto our current home and renting it out.  I said no way in hell.


The pictures, before and after showing the same room and fireplace from 2011 and again in 2017


That's heartbreaking, to destroy the interior fabric of such an old home for essentially no reason.

Is there any other evidence of additional "alterations" like this?


Minor stuff.  The exposed beams in the kitchen seem to have been smoothed over and painted.  Why someone would do that when the ax marks are the charm of older buildings.  The electrical to the one barn seems to have been a DIY project, which I can't imagine is safe by any stretch of the imagination.  Even my "Don't worry about it" husband looked at that and said it needs to be removed and installed properly

Power has finally been restored to the area, so now that we can move forward and schedule the inspections we'll find out what else was done and how bad it is.

It appears that the owners who had been there for decades (I believe their deed was from 1968) took care of the property.  Recent renters appear to have been the polar opposite.  When I spoke with the inspection company they said that was very common.  Considering how the renters we had at my grandmother's house to help pay for her assisted living did over $28,000 of damages, I'm actually going to say that these people probably got off lucky.  Though we did luck out in our case because $28,000 is above and beyond "wear and tear from tenants" so the insurance company covered the damages.

Looking at the type of damage, it seems they chipped out the stone to try to fit in the wood stove.  I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that this was a DIY project and was not done by a paid professional.  We do want a pellet stove insert, but will have it professionally installed and will go with their recommendation of what size will fit the space rather than trying to use a pick ax to force it to work

We will have to pull out the piano from the other fireplace before the inspection, I'm hoping that it wasn't there covering any other damage, but if it is then we'll deal with it when we get to it.


I also found an old real estate listing photo of the older fireplace before the piano was shoved into it.  The quality isn't the best, but it gives you an idea of what that fireplace looked like when it wasn't occupied.  It is hard to make out, but there is some sort of set in shelf on the right side about half way up in the rear of the fireplace


I am absolutely heartbroken. The septic system is shot, it is beyond repair and needs to be replaced in its entirety.


I love the home, but in the end this is a financial transaction and even at a fixer-upper price a new septic system is too much to take on. The ballpark I was given, due to the size of the home, layout of the area, and specific environmental factors (high water table, etc) it would be in the area of $30k-$50k.  And in its current condition the home won’t qualify for a conventional mortgage and is not inhabitable. 


So as much as it pains me, we are walking away and once again searching  tongue laugh 


sorry to hear that. Been there, done that. I have to try and continue to live by the Mantra everything happens for a reason. You will find your place. 


Soooo... after some negotiations the seller reduced the price to reflect needing a brand new septic system. At this point unless the well test comes back showing plutonium in the water I think we’re back on. Though I will need to update the thread title to reflect the reality of buying a fixer upper  oh oh 


Oh, and at the last inspection we discovered that the property has feral barn cats/kittens.  I'm already on a local message board trying to find TNR resources in the area to have them spayed and neutered.  I don't mind them staying around if they want, I just don't want them to start populating their own little colony. 



spontaneous said:
Soooo... after some negotiations the seller reduced the price to reflect needing a brand new septic system. At this point unless the well test comes back showing plutonium in the water I think we’re back on. Though I will need to update the thread title to reflect the reality of buying a fixer upper  oh oh 

 snake 


Pine wood, even after drying, has too much sap and will spit when burned.  Fire wood of last resort.



DannyArcher said:

Pine wood, even after drying, has too much sap and will spit when burned.  Fire wood of last resort.

Even for an outdoor fire pit?


After filling a 40 yard dumpster and still needing a second one, we did find a few interesting things. 


These ceramic things are a mystery, they’re behave shaped, and each one has a hole in the top, and one hole on the bottom edge


Any idea of what they are?


We don’t know what these are either. Each one is curved and has nine holes on the top edge


Ikea salt and pepper shakers.


The first small barn, before and after. Though looking at its odd design we think it may have been a henhouse at one time. Looking at the construction it is definitely older, it has wooden pegs holding the beams together and things like that 


This is the second one. This building looks tougher than it actually is. The structure is solid, the siding is just loose, and the back “wall” is an old barn door nailed into place at an odd angle, making it look like a death trap


Looking at how it was constructed this one is much newer, probably less than 100 years old.  It does show up on the 1940 historic aerial photo, so a very rough uneducated guess would be that it was constructed somewhere between 1900 and 1940


Between these two small barns/large sheds, we FILLED a 40 yard container, and have stuff piled up waiting for the next one


Out of all the things pulled out we found very little that would be considered useful or of any value. There is a very beat up dresser with Knapp joints that I might try to do something with just because of its age, but most everything else was either junk or damaged beyond repair 


The Knapp joint in question, and “our” frog.


Could the items be lamp bases, or that's too obvious? The lamp came up through the top, with the cord coming out the smaller side hole. Friends in Frenchtown tell me that due to ceramics factories there, it is impossible to do any digging without finding ceramic pieces that were used for fill, even under road beds. 


I didn't know this was a thing but when I saw them I thought they looked like buoys and I looked it up and it is a thing.


Whatever that wooden thing is in the last picture is pretty. 


spontaneous, a word of warning, look into the crown vantage superfund site just north, and upstream, of Frenchtown, and look into the flood history for 2002 through 2010. I live about 20 miles north of Frenchtown. They' ve had trouble there. 


Heynj said:
Could the items be lamp bases, or that's too obvious? The lamp came up through the top, with the cord coming out the smaller side hole. Friends in Frenchtown tell me that due to ceramics factories there, it is impossible to do any digging without finding ceramic pieces that were used for fill, even under road beds. 

 When we were out there today my husband came to the same conclusion, lamps.

Still not sure about the curved pieces with holes in the top


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